RetroRadio is a series of posts of radio interviews from my time working at 98five Sonshine FM covering everything from issues of spirituality to chats with visiting musicians and celebrities.
Hopefully, the interviews spark a few memories and a few thoughts.
These days he’s the newest coach on hit television show, The Voice Australia, but since bursting onto our screens and winning the first series of Australian Idol back in 2003, Guy Sebastian has amassed an amazing list of accomplishments.
He has performed alongside and in front of some of the biggest names in the music business, won a swag of awards and was Australia’s representative at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest.
Back in my radio days, I had a number of opportunities to chat with Guy. Here are a couple of those interviews.
Firstly, here’s an interview from October 2007. Guy was just about to release his Memphis Album. The wonderful thing about that album was that Guy enlisted the help of top soul musicians such as Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Steve Potts, Lester Snell, Dave Smith, Rick Steff, Jim Spake, Kirk Smothers, Scott Thompson and Howard Lamb.
Many of those musicians wrote and recorded the original versions of the songs on the album with the likes of Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Al Green and Wilson Pickett and were members of the MGs, playing with Booker T, and the Blues Brothers Band. Steve Cropper, who co-wrote In The Midnight Hour, Knock On Wood, and (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, also produced the album with Guy.
I remember having a representative of the record company in the studio during our interview. She gasped when Guy revealed that some of those giants of the industry would be his backing band for a tour early in 2008.
The only downside of having Guy live in the studio was that he had a terrible flu, which I then managed to catch.
Listen to what he had to say about his music all those years ago using the media player below.
In October 2009 I had the opportunity to catch up with Guy again. Once again we talked about his musical journey and his album at the time, Like it Like That.
Once again he was a delight to interview. I was particularly encouraged, and a little embarrassed, by his final words to me in the interview. I guess he enjoyed the interview as much as I did.
Just click play and enjoy another catch up with Guy Sebastian.
[Note: All RetroRadio interviews on RodneyOlsen.net are a snapshot of the time they were recorded. We all grow and change and so the opinions and thoughts of those in the interviews at the time of recording may or may not necessarily be the same as they are today.]
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